Pointe Magazine - Daily classhttp://www.pointemagazine.com/taxonomy/term/721/0
enGreen With Envyhttp://www.pointemagazine.com/blogs/jealousy/green-envy
<p></p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Ballet class is a place where technique is strengthened and lessons are learned about one's self as a dancer. We repeat common exercises to tone our bodies, gain further mastery of new steps and develop a keen sense of artistry. We fall, we learn intricate combinations, we push ourselves to be better than the day before.&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p><a href="http://www.pointemagazine.com/blogs/jealousy/green-envy" target="_blank">read more</a></p>Daily classJealousyThis Week in DanceThu, 29 Jul 2010 16:24:45 +0000Elizabeth Keniston1309 at http://www.pointemagazine.comThe Pros on Classhttp://www.pointemagazine.com/issues/augustseptember-2009/pros-class
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<a href="/issues/2009/november/toc-13">August/September 2009</a> </div>
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Six principals discuss their approach to daily technique class. </div>
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<p>Daily class may feel like the proverbial grind—like eating your vegetables before you get to the good stuff. But professionals know better: Without class, there is no good stuff. Below, six top dancers describe how they make daily class work for them.<br /><strong><br />Patricia and Jeanette Delgado, Miami City Ballet</strong><br />As dancers, the Delgado sisters are like night and day. Jeanette is an athletic powerhouse; Patricia is delicate, romantic and lyrical.</p> <p><br />But the two share a remarkably similar approach to daily class. Taught almost every day by Artistic Director Edward Villella, the “dancey” 10 am session is mandatory, they say, but that’s for the better. “It’s nice. It connects the company,” Jeanette explains. “You inspire each other.”</p> <p><br />Each turns to Gyrokinesis and yoga to warm up, and has gradually learned to take class more thoughtfully and carefully to protect themselves from injury. They also both shed their leg warmers early on. “I make sure I take off all my junk,” Patricia says. “I know my feet are not as articulated as they could be when I can’t see them.”</p> <p><br />Both say their goals in class are pegged to the season. “If it’s a light day,” Patricia says, “I try to push myself really hard, define my legs, do combinations more than once to get my heart rate going, get into shape, build stamina and strength.” Before a performance, they often work on role-specific technique issues. Jeanette focused on quick feet and light legs for a week in class before she performed Balanchine’s <em>Square Dance</em>. When there’s a matinee, Patricia likes to do each exercise in her character’s mind frame. “I take class as Juliet if we’re doing <em>Romeo and Juliet</em>,” she says.</p> <p><br />Apparently unaffected by even a touch of sibling rivalry, each is quick to point out the other’s strong work ethic. But for all their likenesses, the two are not identical. Patricia likes to stand in the front, near Villella, where she can pick up the combinations and not be distracted. Jeanette’s favorite spot?&nbsp; Next to the piano. “Our pianist, Francisco, is very attentive,” she says. “He keeps you focused on the music. There’s so much to think about, sometimes you forget what’s most important—dancing to the music.” <br /><strong><br />Katita Waldo, San Francisco Ballet</strong><br />When she first came to SFB, Katita Waldo was notorious for avoiding class. “I hated it!” she recalls. “I was lazy.”</p> <p><br />Since then, her approach has changed dramatically. “I started to enjoy the process of checking in with my body every day,” she says. Now Waldo feels like she can hardly dance without taking class. “It’s like medicine,” she explains. “You take your medicine and then you’re prepared for the rest of the day.”</p> <p><br />A fan of “bigger, fuller” movement, Waldo enjoys taking men’s class. She also only wears her pointe shoes for the first three or four exercises at the barre. “If you never wear anything but pointe shoes,” she says, “you never get used to dancing any other way. But I feel like beginning on pointe warms up my feet faster.” When Waldo knows she’ll be performing a piece that requires a specific skill, she uses class time to focus on that technique. To prepare for her debut in Alexei Ratmansky’s <em>Russian Seasons</em> earlier this year, for example, during barre and center she worked on articulating her feet and moving with control—“not my forte.”</p> <p><br />When Waldo was younger, class was mostly about showing the teacher what she could do. Now, it’s more personal. With maturity—and injuries—came “hyper” self-awareness and a desire to better educate herself.&nbsp; “Class is a constant exploration of how to use my muscles better and improve,” she says. “Constant.” <br /><strong><br />Irina Dvorovenko, American Ballet Theatre</strong><br />ABT principal Irina Dvorovenko cannot overstate the importance of daily class. “Class is your alphabet,” she explains. “In ballet, we tell stories. Without the alphabet, you cannot tell a story.”</p> <p><br />Dvorovenko tends to treat class like a mini-performance. When she was working on a new role in Balanchine’s <em>Allegro Brillante</em> last May, she tweaked class combinations so that they echoed Balanchine’s choreography. “It’s like putting beads on a chain,” she says. “Each class makes a difference. You have a whole collection in the end.”</p> <p><br />For feedback in class, she turns to husband and fellow ABT principal Maxim Beloserkovsky. Each critiques the other in Russian—which sometimes leads to animated in-class arguments. But in the end, Dvorovenko says, it’s for the best. “We need to keep an eye on each other,” she explains. “If somebody isn’t paying attention, you get dust on you.” <br /><br /><strong>Ariana Lallone, Pacific Northwest Ballet</strong><br />After 22 years at PNB, Ariana Lallone knows the importance of class, thanks to early teachers Kent Stowell and Francia Russell. And as long as she’s dancing, Lallone says, she needs guidance. “I still want to work on my pirouettes, fouettés, jumping or the way the feet are articulated—whatever the class is working on. I have to be able to grow and change,” she says.</p> <p><br />Lallone, who arrives 45 minutes early to tape her toes and stretch, generally does the entire class on pointe, although she will sometimes do a few barre exercises in flat shoes to work through her feet. “When I came to PNB’s school a number of years ago, all of the classes were on pointe,” she says. “I adapted to that and have done it ever since.”</p> <p>While her approach to class hasn’t changed since her student days, she’s learned what her body can take—when she can push through, and when she should rein herself in. “It’s important to know your limitations,” she says. <br /><br /><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Xiao Nan Yu, The National Ballet of Canada</span><br />Unlike many dancers, Xiao Nan Yu never holds back in class to save energy—even if she’s rehearsing or performing later in the day. “I need to go full out,” she says. “I find the less I do in class, the less I do onstage.”</p> <p><br />To wake up her core muscles, Yu begins her pre-class warm-up with the Pilates 100. She then works on turnout, loosens up her feet and, just before class, stretches her hamstrings, back and glutes. Occasionally she alters her routine if she’s working on something specific.</p> <p><br />“There are things I work on in class all the time,” she says. “You know your weaknesses.” That’s not to say that she finds class dull. “Every day is a challenge. From the tips of your fingers to the tips of your toes, you can always find a challenge for your body. That’s what makes class so interesting.”<br /><em><br />Susan Chitwood has an MS in journalism from Columbia University. <br /></em><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></p> </div>
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American Ballet TheatreAriana LalloneDaily classFeaturesIrina DvorovenkoJeanette DelgadoKatita WaldoMiami City BalletPacific Northwest BalletPatricia DelgadoSan Francisco BallettechniqueThe National Ballet of CanadaXiao Nan YuMon, 23 Nov 2009 19:12:44 +0000schitwood527 at http://www.pointemagazine.comEditor's Letter: Pursuit of Excellencehttp://www.pointemagazine.com/issues/augustseptember-2009/editors-letter-pursuit-excellence
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<a href="/issues/2009/november/toc-13">August/September 2009</a> </div>
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<p>Even the most gifted ballerinas have something they wish they could do better. Our cover model, Boston Ballet principal Erica Cornejo (see “Under Her Spell,” page 26), struggled, in her case, with doubting herself. “There’s a lot of competition, especially among female dancers,” she says. “Others’ comments can hurt your feelings and make you feel down, even if you are very good.” She learned that dancing for herself would bring its own rewards.</p> <p><br />Cornejo credits her teachers for helping her “not to forget that feeling goes into every step.” She still turns to company class to help her keep each step “clean and strong.” Another great support? Husband Carlos Molina, holding her at right. They love cooking together, she says, and they share a passionate commitment to the art of ballet. For both, it all begins in class. “Since I started ballet,” says Cornejo, “I don’t remember taking a class without dancing like it was a performance. It’s not that it has to be perfect—it has to be fun.”</p> <p><br />For dancers, class and training are never over—that’s why they’re the focus of this issue. Read “The Pros on Class” (page 32) to find out what some top dancers feel they need to work on every day. And everyone hits a different sticking point during their training. We asked Pointe staffers their biggest challenges as students, and what helped them most.</p> <p><br />For Senior Editor Jenny Stahl, mastering certain steps loomed large. As a student at Professional Ballet School in Belmont, California, she says, “I didn’t have a natural body for ballet, so I had to work for almost every bit—turnout, feet, flexibility, jumps, speed.” When she started, a special frustration was grand jetés. “I learned to stretch regularly, about 30 to 45 minutes a day, and to use both timing and the strength I had in order to get into the air.” When she was a student at Miami’s South Florida Ballet, “I was obsessed with the image I made in the mirror,” says Assistant Editor Elizabeth Gorgas. “After a while I wasn’t ‘dancing’ anymore.” It took her teachers’ covering the mirror to help her break free of her anxiety.</p> <p><br />And for Assistant Editor Margaret Fuhrer, there was a life lesson to be learned. As a student at the Acton School of Ballet in Acton, Massachusetts, her “less than stellar” flexibility proved frustrating. “It took me until my late teens to realize nobody’s perfect. A ballerina’s job,” she says, “is to create the illusion of perfection.”</p> </div>
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<a href="/gallery/augustseptember-2009/erica-cornejo-editors-letter">Erica Cornejo, Editor&#039;s Letter</a> </div>
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Boston BalletDaily classEditor's LetterErica CornejoSelf EsteemMon, 23 Nov 2009 16:26:14 +0000514 at http://www.pointemagazine.com